Deliberate delays

SIR — The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has released a report on the rise of protectionist measures by its members. According to the report, there has been a noticeable spike in protectionist measures by WTO members of late.

Worryingly, many of these are of the more covert and insidious type. Governments know they will not get away with overt protectionism, so they are deliberately placing other bureaucratic obstacles in the way of trade.

This made me think of the crisis at the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS), a littleknown but vital institution in our economy. The NRCS is responsible for issuing “letters of authority” for much of what is imported into SA.

In the past 18 months, service levels at the NRCS have deteriorated so significantly that dozens of companies can no longer secure supply of their products. No products coming in means no products on the shelves, which means no sales. Some of these businesses are reaching crisis point, and are being forced to lay off workers or close doors.

The NRCS is supposed to process applications within 120 calendar days, which is already an absurdly long time in the real world of fast-moving products and just-in-time ordering.

However, many businesses report that the 120-day timeframe is not being adhered to, that the NRCS is unresponsive to queries and is unhelpful in resolving bottlenecks.

Although I have raised this deterioration in service often in Parliament over the past year, I have thus far given the NRCS the benefit of the doubt because of the number of applications it has to deal with.

However, the WTO report has got me wondering whether the sharp drop in service standards is not a deliberate attempt by the Department of Trade and Industry to frustrate imports.

Of course, it is important for SA to work to shrink its trade deficit. But to do so by deliberately frustrating imports is terrible policy.

I encourage any business that is suffering interminable delays from the NRCS to contact me so that a thorough investigation of the NRCS’s performance can be conducted. Geordin Hill-Lewis, MP DA spokesman on trade and industry